


Equal and Opposite Reaction

by CommanderBunnBunn



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderBunnBunn/pseuds/CommanderBunnBunn
Summary: Disguised as HVAC technicians, Mac and Jack infiltrate a drug kingpin's compound to install surveillance equipment as a favor they owed another of the letter agencies. The mission was a cake walk...until it went sideways
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 58





	Equal and Opposite Reaction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Team Alpaca](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Team+Alpaca).



"C'mon, hoss, we're almost there. Just a few more yards. Or should I say meters since they use the metric system here?" Jack's thumb is hooked into the belt loop of Mac's navy blue coveralls, nearly dragging him along.. 

"Yard is slightly longer than..." Mac's choked gasp of pain cuts him off. Jack has to look over at Mac who's left arm is hooked loosely around Jack's neck; he's still conscious. Adding more support under Mac’s armpit and across his shoulder, Jack squeezes him in closer. 

The blood from the bullet wound on Mac's upper thigh, just below his hip has saturated both his and Jack's coveralls, but they have to get back to their HVAC van and shag ass out of there before dressing anything. The shot that grazed Mac's temple stunned him for a moment, but he's not lost consciousness. Yet. It bleeds profusely, and Mac's definitely had his bell rung, but they've dealt with worse. 

Jack doesn’t have a gun, they knew they’d be frisked going in due to the felonious status of their client, so he has a knife stuffed into his boot, and that’s it. Any materials they could use to improvise a weapon were left in the tool bags in the attic. Jack had grabbed the staple gun, but compared to the heavy artillery they were up against, it was better used for throwing at someone’s head. He did manage to knock that dude in the eye with the staple gun, which is the only reason they were able to get as far as they had without more bullet holes in them. 

Taking cover behind an unnecessarily extravagant fountain made of stone, Jack scans the area to make sure they have a clear path to the van and won’t be sitting ducks for too long. He also needs a moment to catch his breath. 

Mac sways again, leaning heavily into Jack’s side. His head bobs as he fights the darkness overtaking his vision. Jack jostles him and jams his fingertips roughly into the side of Mac’s ribs. With a groan, he slowly lifts his head and turns it toward Jack to complain, "ow."

Seeing the amount of blood tracked down Mac's face and into the collar of his coveralls makes Jack cringe. He reminds himself, it's a head wound, they bleed; at least the kid's still lucid enough to gripe even if Jack is now taking most of his weight. 

"Allright, let's go. On a count of three, we're gonna run to the back of the van." Jack speaks quietly as he tries to catch his breath. 

"K." Is all Mac manages as his world spins and pulses in time with the throbbing in his head. 

Jack knows their pursuers are quickly approaching, he can hear their footsteps, not bothering with the actual counting, he blurts, "THREE!" And takes off. Mac’s good leg is unable to keep up with the hurried pace. Jack pulls the handle and opens one of the back doors, using it for cover as he shoves his partner, not so gently, into the cargo storage as bullets ping through the thin metal of the walls. 

The gun stowed in the back, just in case, was Jack's saving grace. Seventeen bullets in the mag and one in the chamber; Jack still wishes he'd brought the extended mag. He closes the door, leaving himself fully exposed to their assailants but also giving him a full visual of them. Jack efficiently picks off 4 of them and still has most of his mag left. 

Once the gunfire subsides, he slaps the side of the van as he walks to the driver's side to let Mac know he's the one getting in and to stand down with whatever random item he's chosen as a weapon. As he pops the door open, Jack announces, "it's just me, don't blow me up, please."

Expecting to see the blonde armed with a pipe wrench, or better yet a cannon made of flexible duct and freon, he's flat on his back across the van's floor with his eyes closed. 

"Nuh uh, brother. No sleeping on the job." Jack jokes in an attempt to cover his rapidly increasing worry. He hops up into the seat, shoving the key into the ignition. When Mac doesn’t respond, Jack talks louder. "Mac, I can't dress that bullet hole in your leg while I'm driving, so you better get up and do it," Jack throws the van in gear and punches the gas, "Don’t make me pull this car over and do it myself."

Mac still doesn't respond. With his eyes shifting back and forth between the road and his partner, Jack reaches behind and grabs the back of Mac's collar, dragging him into a more seated position. Mac's arms and legs scramble for purchase to stop the fabric seam between his legs that was threatening to rid him of his manhood. A choked scream escapes as he fails to dislodge the oppressive clothing. When Jack lets go, Mac's wide awake able to breathe again. He's afraid that if he curls up in the fetal position around his aching groin, he might pass out, so he leans against the back of the seat instead.

"You see a first aid kit back there?" Jack asks as he leans over, one hand on the steering wheel, one rifling through the glove compartment. 

Mac scans the cargo area with his eyes, nothing. "No," is all he croaks out as he grabs for a roll of duct tape that's just out of reach. 

Jack unzips his own coveralls and unfolds it down to his waist. He pulls a tac knife out of his pocket and proceeds to cut a sleeve off his coveralls while using his knees to steer. Making quick work of it, he hands the stiff blue fabric to Mac with one word, "sitrep."

Using his Swiss Army Knife to cut away some of the fabric around his wound, Mac answers between strained breaths, "through and through, mostly tissue damage, minimal muscle, negative on artery."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm looking at it, it's not spurting."

"Because you've bled too much already, your blood pressure's tanked. Is it pulsing out of there?"

"Too bumpy, can't tell, but I don't think so."

"Ok, wrap it up, I'm getting you to a hospital." Jack adds with authority. 

Mac huffs, but really has no argument to present. He places the sleeve around his entire thigh and bends his knee up to wrap the duct tape around the wound as tightly as he reasonably can in his weakened state.

Overcome by a wave of nausea and vertigo, Mac swings toward the wall of the van and vomits into a duct fitting. 

Stars dance in front of his eyes, and he pants for a moment, steadying himself by grabbing the wall and Jack's seat belt buckle. First he notices Jack isn't wearing his seat belt then he notices the blood on his gray t-shirt. He pushes through the fog in his brain, with the coveralls on, there shouldn’t have been that much blood transfer to Jack's underclothes. 

"Jack?" He starts, and Jack looks down at him. Mac's face is half covered with blood and half ghastly white. His eyes are unfocused yet filled with concern. Mac wants to ask why Jack is bleeding, but only manages, "you're not wearing your seatbelt."

Mac's hair falls into his face as head sags forward. His hand loses its grip on the buckle and falls to the ground, blood streaking down the captain's chair with it. Jack curses and turns his eyes to the road for a moment then in the rear view and side mirrors to make sure they don't have a tail.

Angling the rear view mirror down as far as it will go to keep Mac in view, Jack speeds up toward the local hospital. He never does an op without first finding the important and useful landmarks in the city where they're doing the job. It’s such an absolute necessity to Jack that the Phoenix actually gets him a paper map of said city before the op, marking his desired landmarks because he's "old school like that." He also doesn't trust technology as much as the others. With a little schmoozing he got the Phoenix to purchase a plotter so they could custom make and print the maps for him instead of having them mailed. 

Jack is sweating and short of breath, every bump in the road jostles Mac a little more, limp as a ragdoll in the mirror. "Mac!" He hollers every now and again, occasionally reaching for his neck to feel for the racing pulse. "Come on, kid." He pleads after too much unresponsive time. 

He turns the van into a parking deck to hide, motioning with his hand for the ticket dispenser machine to hurry up with the ticket. More than anything he wants to ram the gate to get in, but that defeats the purpose of hiding. 

Jack circles up 2 floors, parking in a corner where he still has eyes on the entrance and exit from the garage and some light to assess his partner. 

"Mac!" His voice feels louder in the enclosed parking structure without the road noise, but Mac still refuses to stir. Jack rotates in his seat, the pain in his side from the movement takes his breath away. Grabbing Mac under the armpits, he drags him to a more seated position between the two front seats against the center console. 

Moaning at the motion, Jack taps his cheek. "Hey, that's it. Come on back." Mac squirms and flinches, squinting at the light, but thankful he’s facing the back of the windowless cargo van. Jack wants so badly to ruffle that hair, grateful his boy is responding to him, but it would probably hurt. He squeezes Mac’s shoulder instead, “how’s the leg?” 

“Dark back here. Hard to tell.” 

“Ok, we’ll be on our way back out shortly, but I need you to stay with me. No more conking out with that concussion. Got it?”

“Mmhmm.” Mac agrees, reclining against the center console, a little too pliant for Jack’s taste. One arm across his lap and the other palm up in the floor, his fingers relaxed to their natural curl. His head sways with the movements of the vehicle as they bump down the decline of the parking deck to exit back to the street. Jack glances down at him repeatedly to check that he’s still conscious. “You don’t have to keep looking. Promise I’m awake.” 

Mac looks up to make eye contact with Jack to reassure him, but Jack’s face is sweaty and pale. His eyes are flanked by dark circles and they exchange a fond smile before Jack goes back to actually focusing on the road. Noticing excessive amounts of fresh blood on the side of Jack’s abdomen pooling in his folded down coveralls, Mac unzips his own and removes his sleeve with his knife. He’s weak and uses the knife to remove all of the stitching around the sleeve instead of ripping it apart quickly like he’d wanted. 

Jack wonders what the kid is doing down there, but is satisfied with the fact that he’s moving around regardless. Folding the sleeve over and over into a manageable square, Mac leans slightly toward Jack, at eye level with the other man’s waist. He knows there’s something under there that needs addressing, but knows Jack has his reasons for hiding things, and calling him out on them just makes him mad. 

As if trying to not disturb a sleeping lion, Mac moves his left hand so slowly and barely fingers at the hem of Jack’s shirt. He pulls the shirt away from the flesh it’s stuck to and lifts it to look at the damage. It still bleeds sluggishly and has pooled in the Nomex fabric at his waist. Mac presses his discarded sleeve to what he presumes is a bullet wound and feels Jack hitch at the pressure. 

Jack’s conflicted. He doesn’t want the boy to worry about him since Mac’s got his own bullet wound, technically two...technically three if you count entry plus exit and the graze on his head. Jack’s just got the one, in his belly, no big deal. He doesn’t think it came out the other side, which is not great, but he’s had worse. It’s much easier to keep tabs on Mac when he can feel Mac’s hand pressing on his belly to staunch the bleeding.

With only a few more miles to the hospital, Jack is terribly woozy, but able to bring himself back to attention to get to their destination. During the drive, Jack feels Mac’s hand ease up on the pressure only to have the other hand take over as his strength wanes. Jack’s own hands shake on the steering wheel, gripping it harder to steady them. His breathing is rapid and shallow, so loud in his own ears that he can’t hear anything else around him. 

They’re so close, he can feel it. A sixth sense ringing in his ears telling him he’s almost at their destination. Mac’s hand lets up and the other doesn’t take its place. The kid is exhausted and damn near knocked cuckoo from a bullet that would have ended him had they hesitated for one second in their escape attempt. “Hey Mac,” Jack tries to get his attention, he wants to ask some silly question to try to elicit an angry answer out of Mac and get him talking. 

When Mac doesn’t answer, Jack looks down to check on him and is overwhelmed by dizziness and a louder ringing in his ears that presses out toward his forehead. He blinks his eyes rapidly in an attempt to stave off the blackness that encroaches on his vision. “Fuck!” he exclaims and presses the brake in an attempt to pull over to stop the van before he loses consciousness. The van hops the curb as Jack slumps over the steering wheel. His limp body bounces off the window and the wheel as the out of control vehicle hits several objects and other cars before coming to a stop by ramming into a parked car, smashing Jack’s face into the windshield. 

xxxxxxxxxx

Bram's bad day at work got worse when his Mercedes was sideswiped by a runaway service van. His heart leapt out of his chest when his mirror was knocked off and the tail end of the van clipped his front bumper. After he calms down and catches his breath, finally settling the lunch he almost lost from the scare, he approaches the van to give the reckless driver a piece of his mind. 

Thinking he missed the driver bailing out on foot, he opens the door to something so horrifying it takes him several long moments to even process it beyond shapes and colors, far too much of them red. Blood is streaked on the dash and door panel, the plunk of the drips from the vinyl seat into the blood saturated floorboard are somehow louder than the hissing radiator. And there’s a body in the back, mostly covered by flexible ducts and fittings tossed around in the crash, except his face. Caked in blood from his forehead to the neckline of his shirt, his face was all that could be seen- lips parted and blue tinged. Whatever happened, it wasn’t from this crash.

He turns away to throw up, his silk tie catching a good bit of the vomit. He doesn’t even think to call the authorities, someone probably already has, so he sits in his Mercedes with it’s dangling mirror, to call his wife once he realizes how lucky he is to have only a few dents and scratched paint.

From the curb on the other side of the street, he watches out of morbid curiosity. The ambulance arrives quickly, snapping a cervical collar on the driver and pulling him out without haste. He watches them try to rouse him, and the patient fights back weakly with unintelligible groans of protest. A gauze pad is pressed over the fresh gash on his forehead and blood from his nose collects in the smile lines across his cheeks as they whisk him into the back of the ambulance. 

Through the passenger side, a paramedic fits the other victim with an oxygen mask and a collar as well, while others try to gain better access. Several firefighters yank at the back doors to the van, knocked askew by the impact in such a way that they’re now jammed shut. Luckily, a crowbar and some brute strength eventually pry it open before the large pneumatic tools are needed. 

They shove fallen duct materials and tools out of the way to get to their patient who has yet to respond to the rescuers. More responders arrive and push the debris out of the road as it is tossed from the pile that covers the remaining victim. The ones who aren’t directly hands-on radio back to dispatch to make sure the trauma center with neuro isn’t on diversion and pray it isn’t as bad as it looks. 

Strapped to a backboard, with IV and oxygen flowing, he’s packaged and carted off to the awaiting ambulance, disturbingly gray. The police still haven’t shown, so the Mercedes driver waits, feeling alone and abandoned as the emergency vehicles pull away, leaving him alone with the empty van. Metal HVAC pieces, flecked and smeared with blood, taunt him from the side of the road as the wind catches and moves them slightly. 

Xxxxxxx

Mac scrunches his face at the offending lights, immediately regretting it when his stitches pull. He reaches for the nasal cannula the second he notices it’s there, but his arm is stopped by a gentle hand guiding his own back down to the bed. With a whimper and a huff, Mac shows his disapproval before cracking one eyelid to see who insists on prolonging this annoyance. 

As soon as the icy blue peeks through his eyelids, Riley adjusts herself to be in his field of vision before brushing her fingers into the side of his hair. “Hey,” she whispers sweetly. 

He can’t help but smile. “How’d you get here so fast?” Mac asks.

Her look is a mix of pity and adoration, “oh, Mac. It’s been two days. You’ve been in and out, since I got here.”

“How’d you know?” 

“When you didn’t check in, we checked the blotter, the news, and satellite imaging and found your crashed van.” She added, knowing full well he knew she’d be able to find them anywhere.

He gasps, it wasn’t a question, but more of a realization, “Jack?” Panic began to well, “he had a hole…”

She ran her hand down his arm and hooked her fingers on his, “he’s over there.” She tilts her chin toward the other side of the room. 

Mac turns his head faster than he should have and squints against the stars that dance before his eyes. His face crumples at the sight of his partner in the next bed, black eyes, a broken nose, and drains and other things snaking from under the blanket.

“He’s alright,” she assures Mac with a patient grin. “I had a running bet with one of the nurses over which one of you guys would wake up first to ask about the other.” As she sits back down in the chair next to Mac, she doesn’t let go of his hand. “I guess I lost the bet...That is unless you want to play possum for me until Jack wakes up, otherwise I owe Nurse David a steak dinner and a bottle of wine.” 

Mac’s voice is tired, sluggish, but he smiles as he speaks. “How do you know that’s not what Jack is doing? Listening to us and waiting for his time to make a dramatic entrance with an audience.” 

“That sounds like a very Jack thing to do.” She laughs and notices the corner of Jack’s mouth turn up.

“You both lose.” Jack’s voice is gravelly, “And that’s not a bet, that’s a date. Who is this Nurse David?” 

“He’s the one who makes sure you get the good stuff, so you should probably keep the enhanced interrogation techniques under wraps if you know what’s good for you and your pain management.”

Jack’s eyes blink slowly as he replies with absolute seriousness, “At least he’s seen me naked first instead of seeing you. I'm a middle aged Adonis.”

“Gross, Jack! Go back to sleep.” She laughs and relocates to the chair situated between the two beds, kissing Jack on the cheek first, then Mac. “Get some rest, guys. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

**Author's Note:**

> random prompt came from a friend. Also super thanks to Nat and Nade for your assistance in helping this come out better. Team Alpaca!


End file.
